The VMware VM Alert allows users to monitor resource utilization and notify when the specified threshold has been breached. By default, this monitoring rule is create when then VMware Hypervisor API has been configured, along with the subsequent storage and VM rules.

Create a New Monitoring Rule

1. To create a new monitoring condition, navigate to the Configure - Monitoring Rules page and click the New button
2. A selection pane will appear, click the + button next to VMware ESX/ESXi Watch to expand the options
3. Click the radio button next to VMware ESX/ESXi Watch - Virtual Machine Watch and then click OK
4. Now the monitoring rule pane will appear. At the top of the pane name the Monitoring Rule via the Rule Name field, as well as define the description and the severity.
5. The first tab, ServerWatch is where you will define condition(s) to be monitored.
   1. In the %CPU Used field, specify the percentage threshold for the Total % CPU Utilization to monitor and you will be alerted if the % CPU Utilization goes above this threshold.
   2. In the Memory Free field, specify the percentage threshold for the Physical Memory in units of either Percent (%) or Gigabytes (GB), chosen via the radio buttons next to the field you would like to monitor and you will be alerted if the free space drops below this threshold.
   3. In the Logical Drive Free field, specify the threshold for the Logical Drives in units of either Percent (%) or Gigabytes (GB), chosen via the radio buttons next to the field in which you'd like to monitor. An alert will be triggered if the the free space drops below this threshold.
   4. The Exclude field, next to the Logical Drive Free field, allows one to optionally specify one or more drives to be excluded from the drive space monitoring, separated by a semi-colon.
      1. For example, to exclude the Logical Drives D, E and F, specify as "D; E; F;" without the quotes.
   5. In the Network Interface KB/sec field, specify the transmitted and received bytes to alert on.
      
   6. Click the Additional Host, CPU, Memory and Disk Counters button to add more detailed performance thresholds to the alert, including CPU Ready, Disk Performance, and Memory Performance metrics.
6. In the Selections tree, select the VM(s) that you want to monitor the specified condition on
   1. Please note, a machine can only be applied to one VMware ESX/ESXi VM monitoring rule type at a time. If there is no checkbox option, hover over the bell icon to get the name of the monitoring rule that the machine is currently applied to.

Configure the Schedule

The Schedule tab of a monitoring rule allows users to define how frequently the rule will alert. This can be done by adjusting the following fields:

Required Options (one of the below must be selected):

• Alert Every Time: Defines whether an alert is generated every time the conditions are on the previous tab are met.
  • When checked, an alert is generated every time the specified condition is met.
  • When unchecked, the alert is only generated if the alert conditions are met, and the Minimal Notification Interval, see below, is exceeded since the last alert for this type.
• Minimal Notification Interval: Defines the minimum amount of time that must elapse between events for the specified condition before another alert will be generated.
  • For example, if the interval is 15 minutes and the condition is being met every 3 mins, you will receive 1 alert every 15 minutes instead of being alerted at each occurrence.
    • However, each alert occurrence is considered unique based on the details. For example, an Event Log alert is considered the same based on being the same Event Type and ID, from the same server/workstation.
  • The Alert Every Time checkbox must be unchecked in order to use this option.
  • For ServerWatch IP Services, this also defines the minimum elapsed time since a service is first detected as down or failed before an alert is generated.

Additional Options: 

• Maximum Notification Interval: Defines the maximum number of times you want to be notified during a continuous failure situation.
  • The default value of '0' means infinite; no maximum is defined so you will continue to be notified according to your Alert Every Time and Minimal Notification Interval settings.
  • A non-zero value means that after you have been notified the number of times defined in the Maximum Alert Notifications, and according to your Alert Every Time and Minimal Notification Interval settings, you will not be notified again.
    • For example, if "5" is selected, the event will alert for the first 5 events and all additional events will be ignored.
• Notify On Restore: Defines whether a 'Restore' alert is generated if you have previously been alerted due to a failure.
  • For example, if CPU has been 90%, and then dropped below the alert threshold, the notify on restore email will inform you that the condition has returned to a normal state.
  • There is always a Notify on Restore for a ServerWatch type alerts.

• Service Check Frequency, Every: Defines the frequency with which the service specified for this Monitoring Rule is checked. It is no recommended to do this check any fewer then 3 mins. 

• Alert 1^st Time After X Failures: Define a value 1 or greater that defines how many successive failures should occur before the 1^st alert notification 'Action' is executed.

  • The Alert Every Time and Minimum Notification Interval settings do no become applicable until after this threshold setting is exceeded.
  • The default value for this setting is blank which means not applicable. When not applicable, the Alert Every Time and Minimum Notification Interval settings are active immediately and the 1^st alert does not occur until the Minimum Notification Interval threshold is equaled or exceeded if it is active.

Additional Configuration

For additional configuration options please see the following articles:

• Enabling Notifications:
  • Configure Email and Text Alert Notifications
  • Configure SNMP Alert Notifications
  • Configure Syslog Alert Notifications
• Configure Custom Remediation